I’ve considered shutting down my Facebook page recently. The negative energy on the site some days makes me crazy. I have this personality that takes peoples opinions very personally and to heart. I’m not the type of guy who can be your ‘friend’ and not agree with who you are. I wrote a post awhile ago about branding. The post dealt with how the perception that people have of us or our organization based on what we put out there for the world to see. Our Facebook posts, photos on Instagram, tweets, and our blog entries. All of those speak volumes about who we are. The real us. I’m discovering that in a lot of cases I don’t like the real you! But that’s OK if that’s who you are. People who I have known for years I am finding out that I really never knew. Both in a good way and a bad way. People who I have held in some level of esteem disappoint me on a regular basis with the things that they ‘put out there.’ And people but some pretty shameful things out there. With every new controversy I am more and more inclined to hit the ‘unfriend’ button. But I don’t because then my social networks would only be people who believed like I do and that would be close minded. Only rarely do I engage and then only when I have a valid opinion that I have researched and can support. I also struggle because of what I do and how I am perceived in the community. Being confrontational online is not part of the brand that I want for myself. I know, this is my hang up. I’m trying to be more understanding about how other people think. It is just difficult based on a 10 word meme whether that is really who you want me to think you are or if you didn’t really put a whole lot of thought into it.

I guess this post really comes down to a few simple things:

1. Research – In the age where everyone has a computer in their pocket and at least one other device to access the interweb, take a few minutes to look into the facts of a story that you are going to share. It really isn’t hard in the world of Google at your fingertips. At least take the time to determine if the information comes from a reliable source. (Yes, the large majority of kids in school say the Pledge of Allegiance everyday. No, nobody in public schools is stopping your child from praying before he eats his lunch. No, Ted Cruz, Michelle Bachman and Mike Huckabee did not defend Josh Duggar.)

2. In the same vein, take time before posting, sharing, commenting, retweeting, etc. The world sees this stuff! It is worth a few minutes of contemplation to determine the value of what you are sharing, how your posts reflect on who you are, and the pros/cons of your online activity. Remember: This is the real you; this is your brand!

3. Do your best to add value to the feeds of your followers. The world needs creators and if your means of creation is social media then use it for good and not evil. I know that everyone wants to post a gag or a funny picture every once in a while but for every cartoon or funny meme that you post, share at least one good article or picture, add at least one thoughtful comment, write at least one post that helps define who you are.

Now that makes sense to me.It is a wake up call to all of us and most definitely a new way to portray social media to tweens and teens.

For professionals, we can talk about having separate accounts for professional use and private use but the reality is that whatever we put out there represents us. We can’t hide behind psuedonyms or private accounts. We can, I guess, but it doesn’t change who we are. Whatever we put out there impacts our brand. I don’t think there is any positive or negative; it is just a representation of who we are. As educators and professionals we should strive for transparency in our tweets, Facebook posts, blogs, etc. We should put out there who we truly are and what we truly believe so that when others read our content, they know who we really are.

This rings true for our schools’ social media platforms. The content creators for our schools should be putting out the message that this is who we are. This is what we believe and this is what we strive to do for students.This is the positive side of social media that many districts still fear.

Branding is a way we create transparency in edu. Who we are is open to the world. Better we create our own brand than be branded.#Edchat

Mr. Whitby shared the above tweet also. How true! We are being branded in public education on a daily basis. This is our opportunity to take the bull by the horns and put our content out there. There is no question as to the power of social media. Parents are on. Taxpayers are on. Students are on. We can touch our worlds in 140 characters or less and change our brands for the better.

The second thought I have on branding is that it is important that students know this information too. On a daily basis they are building their brand. What they say and post tells the world who they are and how they want the world to see them. For the most part I think kids are who they really are more often on social media than in everyday life. They should remember that this is who the world sees. That’s right, kids, the whole freakin’ world. Protect your tweets but know this: What you say is who you are or who you want to be no matter whether the general public can see it or not.

I’ll retire now with one final tweet from Dr. Weston. In both of the instances in this post, I don’t mean for anyone to be different than who they are. The fake you is hard to maintain and very stressful. {Ever watch Catfish?). The real you is your brand. Keep it safe!

In this age of 24/7 branding, each of us must ask: Do I have the courage to follow my inner compass? #edchat

So, a couple of people have asked me to elaborate on what constitutes a Twitterchat. Especially as it refers to educational Twitterchats. I guess to put it simply, it’s a chat that occurs on Twitter! Too simple?

Okay then, a little history. In the Dark Ages of Twitter, the search feature was disastrous. It was almost impossible to find people with whom you wanted to chat. For that reason, someone came up with the idea of using hashtags (#). Now, if you wanted to search for a group or a particular subject you could just search the hashtag. If people remembered to use the hashtag, it was easy to find the conversation. Thankfully those days are over and the hashtags are not necessary. They do however persist and have taken on a new role. Hashtags now allow you to search and find a conversation even if you weren’t present for it. They also allow you to follow a conversation in semi-real time as well as participate in said discussion. It’s kind of like having a conversation with a large group of people on a common subject. Doesn’t matter if you know them or if you “friend” or follow them. Everyone is there to talk about a commonality.

Which leads us to #edchats or #educhats. The education community has run away with the idea of joining people of like minds to have conversations using hashtags. There are so many hashtags that it would be insane for me to try to list them all. Luckily a Twitterer extraordinaire has done that for us. Jerry Blumengarten, who can be found @cybraryman1 on Twitter, has compiled a monster list of educational hashtags. (Don’t go look for it now! I’ve included a link to a livebinder site with all the info). I didn’t count them but there are way over 100. Everything from New teachers #ntchat to Australia education chat #ozchat. He has also but together a nice schedule, although not comprehensive, of when the chats are live – I’ve included that in the live binder.

So, here’s what you do. Most people who chat suggest that you use a third-party app. It is not completely necessary especially if you are using mobile devices but it does make it a little easier. I use TweetCaster on my Iphone and Ipad and TweetDeck on my desktop. There are others too like Hoot Suite and Seesmic. If you are going to participate live, put the hashtag in the search bar on your app. It will immediately take you to all the tweets with the same hashtag. For example, one that I like to participate in is #geniushour. I put #geniushour into the search and magically all the tweets are there. One thing that you will want to do if you find a chat that you like is to follow the moderator. This will allow you to know what the topic for the discussion will be prior to the chat. The moderator will be the person asking the questions. They will number their questions Q1, Q2, Q3, etc. You can just follow along or you can participate. If you participate, you should label your answers A1, A2, A3, etc. so that everyone can follow the conversation. Within a question there is always some back and forth between participants and a lot of retweeting.

If you happen to not make it to the live chat, no worries. You can search the hashtag anytime after the chat and see the whole conversation. Many moderators also archive the chat in programs such as Storify or on their wikis for access after the fact.

Some of my favorites are #geniushour, #abedchat, and #DENchat. Those are probably good ones to start with. When you start to build you PLN, you will see people tagging their tweets with different hashtags. Feel free to search that tag and participate in the chat. I have tweeted with Alabamians in #aledchat and Chicagoans in #iledchat as well as the great Canadians in #abedchat.

As you can see, as your PLN grows, the world gets smaller and smaller. I regularly tweet with a teacher in Australia. One of the teachers in my building met a woman in Texas whom she regularly tweets with and Skypes into the classroom for class to class discussions. One day I had George Couros respond to my tweet. I was pretty ecstatic.

Damn, now I’ve done it. I let the proverbial cat out of the bag! In my Teach and Facilities Management course we read about establishing a PLN. One of the challenges issued by the good Doctor was to start a blog to reflect on what it is that we do. For those of you who have read this blog in the past, you know that’s not always what I do. My narcissism was hanging out though! What could I do? The good Doctor was praising everyone who started a blog and I just blurted it out! “I’ve got a blog at http://www.40phor.com but it’s not new.” See what I;m saying. Now all of these people are going to stop by and read it! I’ve tried for so long to keep this quiet (and if you could see mt stats you would know what I’m saying!) and in the minds of complete strangers. Now I have to really work at it.

So let the PLN begin! I have been working hard to create a working list of followers and the followed on Twitter. I must confess, though, that a big pile of those educators are the ones who feel the same way that I do about the deleterious reformers and their little bubble sheets. My community of people that I learn from is smaller but powerful. I like to hit the #edchats whenever possible especially #geniushour and #abed (who knew there was so much progressive ed. in Canada) and the occasional #satchat.

Welcome to my little PLN and since I have resolved to write daily for the near future, I’ll try to ebb the flow of the politics of education to spend more time on educational reflection.

If you haven’t read my about page Ill give you a head’s up, this hasn’t always been a blog about education. It started out as me trying to find my way. It has settled fairly firmly on educational topics in the last year with a few minor digressions. Feel free to browse and if you are offended, saddened, disgusted, turned on, elated, I am glad that I instilled some type of emotion.

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